If he had selected chess as his sport of choice when he was 17, Charles "Chip" Martel might not have had time to be both a professor of computer science and a world champion. Instead, he has bridged two worlds, one as professor and chair of the computer science department at UC Davis and the other as an internationally renowned card player. After acing the 1994 World Bridge Championships in Albuquerque last fall, Martel and his card-playing partner of 18 years, Lew Stansby of Castro Valley, are the world's third-ranked bridge pair. They have won the international tournament three times before. In addition, thanks to separate victories with his other partner, wife Jan, Martel is also the world's fifth-ranked individual bridge player. Because of his research and teaching duties at UC Davis, Martel says he limits his bridge playing to the four major U.S. championships and one international championship each year, plus one or two bridge games a month in Northern California. "Bridge is different from chess," Martel says. "With chess it is much more necessary to study and play constantly. With bridge, it is easier to stay competitive with less practice." Martel sees intellectual and social similarities between his vocation as a computer scientist and avocation as a bridge player. "There are certain commonalities with problem solving and game theory," says Martel, who also correlates the social nature of bridge to good relationships between professors and students.